Sinner today, saint tomorrow

That Nigeria has become a very hypocritical country was evident recently from the drums of crocodile tears shed before the glittering casket of Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu. To be sure, such nationwide insincerity and double standards did not just pop today. It has been there with us, though its practitioners, like the famous chameleon, do change colour from time to time.

Ojukwu started out being admired and envied for his urbane upbringing and schooling. He joined the Nigerian Army as an even more curious figure armed with an intimidating CV, and at par with the few officers in the service, most of who expatriates.

But when he protested the dismal treatment meted out to his Igbo people in the Nigeria of the 60s, and eventually led the three-year secession, his admirers-turned-foes would have given anything to capture him dead or alive. Admiration gave way to bitter rivalry and hostility.

At death, one of the effusive tributes we heard and read was that he rebelled to keep Nigeria one and that everyone loved him all the way. He was once chased as a sinner, but at interment, he attained sainthood. Ikemba Nnewi helped to bring out our hypocrisy.

Another person who also helped along these lines is Mrs Patricia Olubunmi Etteh, the history-making hairdresser, beauty therapist and politician who represents Ayedaale/Isokan/Irewole constituency, Osun State at the House of Representatives.

The case of Etteh who must be given her due as Nigeria’s first woman to hold the office of Speaker of the House, was even more spectacular than that of the Biafran leader. She assumed leadership of the House by popular demand and mandate in spite of her modest education, and in spite of her better accomplished opponents. But her reign was also one of the briefest, lasting barely four months.

She came under such a sweeping attack by the same colleagues who chose her as Speaker, and with probably the same venom as the passion that attended her electoral glorification on June 6, 2007. They harried her and her deputy Usman Bayero Nafada over an alleged N928 house renovation and car contract.

They accused her of trying to enrich herself corruptly, and wanted her to go immediately. She elected to defend herself but that angered her accusers the more. She tried to address them but they shouted her down, chanting ‘thief’, ‘thief’.

On October 30, no more than four months after she became Speaker, she resigned. Most of the people who pulled her down were from her own party, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. The media seized upon Etteh’s lowly professional calling and her limited learning to needle her relentlessly. She was news every time for the wrong reasons.

In those days she came across as the most unlikely woman to assume such an exalted office, and who lasted as long as she did simply because of the backing of her party and that of her mentor, the inimitable Obasanjo.

Etteh slipped out of office and into obscurity even as she remained in the House, but by June last year, she received a unanimous bill of clean health by the same House which had disgraced her out of office.

At a session of the House she was cleared of any wrongdoing and, to boot, her colleagues said there was no record of any improper or illegal conduct against her. Finding her voice, the former Speaker reminded her colleagues that since she became a lawmaker in 1999 she had stolen neither a kobo from the House nor from the federal government. She got a thunderous applause.

It was the stuff of dreams, stranger than fiction. Was it the same hairstylist turned third most powerful person in the country? Was it the same Etteh packaged and presented to the public as the best public figure to hate? But there she was, confidently addressing fellow lawmakers, an opportunity denied in her darkest hour. Waxing lyrical, she asked to be exposed if found guilty, and cleared if nothing was held against her. The House obliged and cleared her.

Why was she accused in the first place? Why was there such apparent determination to kick her out? So rough was the House in those heady days that otherwise honourable men and women came to blows. There were cuts and bruises. The Speaker herself was eased out for her safety. If Etteh was such a sinner, why is she a saint now? Do we blame her ordeal on politics and politicians or on the media, as some have insinuated?

I blame the country that breeds such politics and politicians. I question its claim to objectivity and clear-headed reasoning. I

shudder at a country which seems to leap before it looks. For three years, Ojukwu was chased and targeted for daring to question the plight of Ndigbo in the Nigeria of the 60s.

At his death, an unprecedented crowd of mourners and scorners heaved and hummed with parting praises. Etteh was once one of the most hated leaders in the land.

Today, as it is said, there is not a trace of wrongdoing in her records. Today’s saints. Yesterday’s sinners. Haba, Nigeria.